Rate my Noble game please? - Catherine

Hi all,

Just finished a game on Noble - Catherine/Pangaea/Normal... and I won with a space race victory! That being said, I don't feel like it was resounding and I'm not even close to being able to bump up a difficulty. I've included a few saves from the game, anyone mind taking a look at them at offering areas of improvement?

Thanks in advance.

25 AD save is really all you need to see the problems here.

First off, specialists. Open your city screen--in Moscow especially--and hire some scientists. Frankly, you should've been doing this centuries ago; Writing is an important tech, and generating an early Great Scientist will be very helpful to you in all circumstances. Moscow could really benefit from an Academy, particularly if you built some cottages.

You're not settling near food, and you're wasting some of your food anyway. Novgorod's placement leaves a fish stranded to to the north. Ideally, you want to be able to work every food resource you have available to you--especially fish, which nets a lot of food. Novgorod should be 1 tile south, opening up another city on the northern coast. St. Petersburg misses the banana, but you might have had an eye on those cows. Rostov, though, is a total train wreck until Civil Service comes in--very little food, which means very little opportunity to grow.

Speaking of food, why is your Warrior protecting that clam if you're not going to build a city to claim it? More to the point, why are you building Markets when you should be grabbing that clam?

Let's talk about builds. You have a lot you need to work on, and I feel like you're just spinning your wheels. Two cities are building Markets. Why? The main reason to build Markets, typically, is to run Merchant specialists, but as has been discussed, you're running zero specialists in this game. Two cities have walls, and your neighbors are Mansa Musa and Sitting Bull, neither of whom are military threats. I think this is a case of thinking you have nothing to build--or (shudder) building what the game suggests.

The Great Lighthouse. You have two coastal cities. That's half your cities, but is it worth it?

Which brings me to military. You have forces sitting around cities, you have a Barracks built, and you have all three early strategic resources. If I were you, I'd tech to Horseback Riding, build a whole mess of Horse Archers (WHIP!), and put a hurting on ol' Mansa. I'd have done this centuries ago if I were you actually. You're in a cramped corner, and you should be looking at how to break out.

Basically, you don't have a plan, as VoiceOfUnreason likes to say. If your plan is to tech ahead to Machinery/CS for a mace war, then I don't see the point; Mansa might have Longbows by the time they're ready. This is why it's important to seize advantages early: so you don't end up in an escalating war of attrition where you can't outpace the other guy.

Oz's post tells me all I need to know without even looking at the saves. Xavier, start a new game but play it here on the forum. Play small turnsets (like no more than 20 turns) and get advice from the members here before each turn, including the opening. You will learn a tremendous amount about the game in a short time....and you indeed have a lot to learn. As Oz says, you are just spinning your wheels.

Oz makes a lot of good points, but honestly it's a lot of info that means little when you don't even have a basic understanding of the game. Do as I mentioned above and you will get pointed advice each step of the way.

So, roll a new start (normal settings) and post the save and a screenshot of the start position. Mention the leader, settings, map, etc. and maybe discuss some ideas you might have about the opening or each turnset. Then we will tell you why you are wrong.

Yes, play smaller turn sets. Have a forum training game that is totally separate from your other, offline games. You can play your offline games as quickly as you like. But do not play any turns in the forum game UNTIL you have given your thoughts about the next 5-10 turns and received feedback. This will keep the commentators here interested, let them treat problems as they occur, and help you to learn how to play well in context.

For instance, in your AD 25 save I see that you are building Research in one city and Markets in two others. This is bad play. However, if I say "don't build Markets," "don't build Research," you need to understand why. There are situations in which Markets are good, and building Research is good. If your take-home lesson is "Markets and Research are bad," this will lead to further errors.

One safe piece of advice: don't try to build everything just by working hammer tiles. In AD 25, you are in Slavery. So take a look at VoiceOfUnreason's guide to whipping. Basically, whipping away one citizen turns that citizen into 30 . Again, in AD 25, a size 6 Novogrod is working a Grassland Forest (2 1 ) instead of a Fish (six 2 ). This is, I assume, because Novogrod would become unhappy at size 7. If you whip away two citizens, you will receive 60 and easily grow back in four or five turns. Working the Forest will generate 5 , whipping the citizens will generate 60 . It is easy to see which is better.

I shadowed your game, and Ill try to explain my thinking:

1. SIP (you always get 2 food resources when you SIP, so I knew there was one more in the dark)
2. Techpath: Agri -> AH -> BW -> the wheel -> pottery -> writing -> alpha
3. Worker first, then warrior and settler at size 3 (standard opening)



Turn 33, 2nd city (commerce), placed to share food and work cottages for capital. This was by far the best 2nd city spot, it's next to river tiles, it got a great food tile it can work immediately, it's towards an AI, but not so close that you might be a target for war, and it's able to work many cottages for capital. It also have a fair amount of forests.



Turn 50, 3-4th city, city 3 was placed to get the sheep and fresh-water bonus (GP city), city 4 to get copper + horse and help capital working cottages (military + wonder city). I was considering moving city 3 one tile north-vest to get the crab, but decided not to, as it would make me loose fresh water, and also miss some great riverside-grass tiles. City 4 is food-poor, but I needed the horse/copper to make sure I had something better then warriors if the barbs start entering from north. At size 4 it also has good production (14 hammers/turn).



Turn 69, city 5, gold + 2*sea-food, build fishboats in city 4 to make it productive ASAP (GP city, maybe future moan statues). Food-rich and also got a much needed happy resource. A bit far away though. Mainly gonna be GP (great person) city.



Turn 74 (1040 BC), total 6 cities (space for 1 more) techpath: currency -> CoL -> CS -> paper -> edu.

Giving techs to mansa just so I have a decent tradepartner. Techs for money when I got currency to speed up the overall techrate. Techs like monotheism/other religious techs I give away for 10-50g, great way to stay at 100% research.



1 AD: 2 turns to edu. going for lib -> military tradition and kill everybody with crussiers.



560 AD: all cities has barraz + forge and got all techs to get crussiers, only 1 AI has feudalism, double whip in all cities and that 14 crussier army should own at least 1 AI to start the downward spiral. The game is basically won. A total of 4 GP's, 1 for academy in capital, 1 to bulb philosophy, 1 for golden age, 1 not used (another golden age probably). Feudalism -> guilds (to make workshops better) -> PP -> RP -> rifling would be the next techpath, but probably not needed as the game would have been won before that.


PS: notice how I have 3 cities sharing that same corn, that start was rather food poor so you gotta share those good food tiles if you want high pop cities. Its also important to help your capital working cottages (if the capital is suited for commerce, this one was only avg.), don't be afraid to share tiles.